A San Antonio federal court presiding over a challenge to the state’s 2011 election maps has relieved two Texas Legislative Council employees from their duties as court-appointed redistricting advisers — a move that came just days after a House committee raised conflict of interest concerns.

David Hanna, a senior attorney for Lege Council, and Clare Dyer, the mapping and redistricting manager, were both serving as technical advisers for the three-judge panel that redrew the state’s voting maps last year.

Around the same time the Legislature’s redistricting special session got underway last month, the San Antonio court started setting hearings again in a legal challenge to the state’s 2011 redistricting plan that resulted in the judges having to craft interim maps for the 2012 election.

Under their dual roles, Hanna and Dyer would have been intimately involved in the ongoing trial on the state’s election maps while helping guide House and Senate redistricting committees through the special session.

That raised an interesting question from Democrats Trey Martinez Fischer and Richard Raymond during a Saturday House hearing — how could Hanna and Dyer impartially advise the Legislature and the court at the same time on the best way to draw voting maps?

“I just don’t know how you can do both things,” Raymond told Hanna Saturday. “If it comes down to which one you should choose, you should choose us because you work for us.”

Noting that the state appeared to be “walking a fine line” on a potential conflict of interest, Martinez Fischer went on to raise the specter that Hanna or Dyer’s dual roles could lead them to get called as a witness if another legal challenge arises from the voting maps pegged for passage during the special session.

That ultimately led Rep. Drew Darby, chairman of the House Select Committee on Redistricting, to weigh in, saying he wanted clarity on Hanna and Dyer’s responsibilities to the Legislature and the court. He recommended that Hanna talk to ethics folks to hash out any potential conflicts.

No need for that anymore.

In a one-page order,U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia wrote that Hanna and Dyer’s assistance is not required at the moment because the judges are “not currently in the map drawing phase of the proceedings.”

“At this time, and in order to allow full and unhindered performance of their duties as employees of the Texas Legislative Council, the Court discharges Mr. Hanna and Ms. Dyer as technical advisors to the Court,” Garcia wrote in a Monday order. All prior communications between the Court and Mr. Hanna and Ms. Dyer and all work product resulting from their relationship with the Court as technical advisors remain confidential.”